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How much do we know about the pop culture of our own region? Which are those those artist and characters we have grown up with? Do we know more about the artist from our countries than from others?A few weeks ago I participated in a tropical ecology class and we were thinking about these questions. I did a short project and here I'll be telling you about some of the results...!

Do you want to do the test and be a part of this study?Clic here, and send your responses to nachoescalante @ gmail. com

CONMIGO VIENEN, VIENEN LOS DE ATRAS!BIOGEOGRAPHICAL PATTERNS AND LATITUDINAL OVERLAP OF LATIN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

Abstract: the acquisition and storage of relevant information in organisms are affected by the biogeographical origin of any given individual, as well as by its contact with other individuals and populations. I tested if the extent of knowledge of Latin American popular culture (LAPC) is clustered and consistent between humans from the same country and/or geographical region. Also, I tested for the effect of the time that an individual has been exposed to such knowledge. In a short survey in a focal group I presented 31 images of outstanding figures in music, movies and TV, sports and politics from a wide range from Latin American countries. 24 participants from nine different countries were asked if they recognized the face and/or the name of the character. With a principal components statistical analysis, I found that representatives from some countries (and regions) are more insular in their knowledge than others (figures below). Insular countries were those that new all the artist from their country/region but new fewer characters outside their own. Argentina and Cuba were examples of the former pattern, while Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru were examples of the latter. I also found that age was positively correlated with the knowledge of “foreign” characters. Finally, I found that knowledge of LAPC of Peruvians was broad, and similar to the ones of Argentinians and Costa Ricans, and the latter two had high overlap between each other. On the other hand, Mexicans were the most intra-country consistent in their knowledge, even though they were less similar with other countries’ individuals. Hence, I conclude that the presence of local characters, as well as the amount of contact with other countries are factors that seem to affect how much we know about the popular culture of the lovely lands, the most beautiful in the world.